Rewind six months and we were genuinely excited to be driving the 2014 European Car of the Year and the car voted Highly Commended in the Business Car of the Year category of the 2015 BusinessCar’s Awards. But half a year later, has the Peugeot 308’s crown retained its lustre?   

In my ‘positives’ list, subjectively, the car still feels classically good-looking and quietly passed through its life with us neither being laughed at or indeed stopping traffic due to admiring glances.

The interior was an even smarter place to sit with a deliberately simple dashboard design featuring close-to-premium quality surfaces, helped by a metal-dipped gear knob we liked holding and a large 9.7in colour touchscreen with easy to hook-up Bluetooth (and USB input).

Passenger room front and back was good and boot space excellent (90 more litres than a Golf, 154 more than the Focus

Driving was a simple business too, doing the basics so well you ceased to think about them, with small steering wheel making manoeuvres easy, while a comfy ride puts to shame premium German rivals.

The 120hp 1.6 BlueHDi Active diesel engine felt brisk when acceleration was needed, but never constrained like some other eco-focused cars.

My ‘negatives’ column is almost as long but mainly filled with much less significant items. That minimalist dashboard really could do with a few more real rather than fiddly (and slow to respond) virtual buttons hidden within layers of the centre screen, especially aircon adjustment.

The stop-start and electric handbrake requires minor recalibration – the former had the funny habit of restarting when parked while the latter could do with more tactile feedback to indicate when it’s engaged and disengaged – and the de-mister seemed only to manage ‘off’ and ‘on’ without graduated control.

The biggest letdown, though, was the vast distance between our 46.7mpg real-world (mainly urban) average and the official urban 80.7mpg, let alone 91.1mpg official combined figure. Company car drivers can at least take solace in the lower BIK tax (now 16%) from the equally incredible official 82g/km CO2 rating.

Overall, the 308 is a huge improvement over the old 308. But there are other similarly priced hatchbacks I’d consider first, from the omnipresent VW Golf to competent challengers like the Kia Ceed. Progress? Yes, but it’s not our Car of the Year.